How long have you got? There's a guided workout for that.

How do I find a running workout by time?

Answer the one question the tab asks: How long have you got? Choose Time, km or mi. Time shelves run from 5 minutes to 7 hours. Distance shelves run from 1 km to 100 km, Half marathon and Marathon included, in miles too.

Each shelf marks one run Good for today. It suits the day, it is never harder than Today's gear (the hardest gear your body is ready for, from running readiness), and Start sits right on its card. Rather choose by purpose? More ways to train sorts every run by what it trains.

What are the 14 training targets?

Fourteen targets, and every run trains exactly one. No overlap, no guessing what a session is for. Each target has its own illustration in the gear colors and a one-line description.

1. Recovery
2. Aerobic base
3. Long-run endurance
4. Run-walk build-up
5. Steady intervals
6. Lactate threshold: “The pace you can hold before the burn builds.”
7. Lactate clearance
8. VO2 max: long intervals
9. VO2 max: short intervals
10. Anaerobic capacity
11. Top speed
12. Finishing speed: “Running faster when you are already tired.”
13. Race pace
14. Pace changing

For the physiology behind a few of them, read what lactate threshold is and how to raise VO2 max.

What does a run card show?

Everything you need to choose at a glance. Each card draws the run's shape in gear colors, with a one-line description, its difficulty, a fun score out of five, how other runners rated it, and a short Why it works. Fartlek, for example: “Swedish for speed play: you touch every gear without the weight of a set session.”

For your focus puts runs for your weakest skill first, using the skills from your graded runs (see run analysis). After a run from Find, rate it for Overall, Fun and How hard. Your rating joins everyone's, so the next runner picks well.

Are there running workouts under 10 minutes?

Yes. Quick runs are ten sessions under ten minutes, for the days ten minutes is what you have:

• Scientific 7
• One-Minute Workout
• Tabata 9
• One Big Four
• Mini 10-20-30
• Run Snack
• Five a Day
• Swedish Play 8
• Summit 8
• Up the Gears 9

The classic interval workouts are here too, including the Norwegian 4×4, 10-20-30 and Threshold Cruise. Each is coached in your gears, not at someone else's paces.

What are bursts?

Bursts are ten seconds of Steady or Hard dropped into an easy or long run, played as fun rather than work: one light line in, one warm line out. They keep your legs quick without turning an easy day hard. Lucky Dip builds a whole run on them: “An easy run with ten-second sprints at moments you cannot guess.”

Can I build my own run, or just run?

Both. The run editor on iPhone builds a run from Walk, Easy, Steady and Hard blocks, by time or distance, each with an optional pace target. Repeat with the block before makes five 400 m repeats in nine taps, with undo, redo, and warm-up and cool-down options. On Watch sends it to your Apple Watch. Runs you build file themselves first on the right time and distance shelves, marked with a dot.

Open Run has no set blocks. Start in Easy, tap the gear ring to shift whenever you like, and the coach follows, with time and distance markers as you go. Indoor runs suit a treadmill: pace comes from your steps, and heart rate leads.

Can a run fit the loop I always run?

Yes. Gears finds Your loops on its own, from the running routes in Apple Health and every Gears run. Fit to a loop lays any run on one of them: the laps, the direction and the ground under each block, marked Flat, Climb, Descent or Up and down. It suggests the laps and direction that land the hard work on flatter ground. More on the hill running coach.

What Gears doesn't do

• No Find tab on the watch. Choose runs on iPhone and send them over; the watch runs them with no phone.
• No promises about your VO2 max or race time. Each card says what a run trains, not what it will change.
• No turn-by-turn directions on a loop.
• Coached runs are part of Gears Plus. Browsing Find and the editor is free.